Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

C arys and Duncan were back at the Four Crowns pub in town, sitting in a corner booth and waiting for someone.

"You said you'd take me, and the minute I agree, you drag me back into town." Carys was annoyed and starting to feel like Duncan was leading her on a wild-goose chase to try to run her off. Maybe he'd been right and she should have laughed in his face and driven back to Edinburgh.

What are you doing, Carys? She was unhinged. This was stupid. This was an absolute ridiculous situation, and when she finally found Lachlan, she was going to give him hell about making her trot off into Duncan's delusions to find him.

She looked around the dark pub, which smelled like beer and… oddly, moss. "Why are we back here?"

"We need a favor." Duncan grimaced. "From Dru."

"The bartender?"

"He's that as well," Duncan muttered. "He can take us, but we'll need to bargain with him. Don't say anything, and don't tell him your name. "

Wow. So Duncan was… really into the fairy tale thing. "What are you?—"

"Duncan Murray."

Carys turned and saw the lithe figure of Dru walking through the growing crowd at the bar. It was Thursday afternoon, but they were far from alone in the afternoon rush.

"Dru."

The tall man slid gracefully into the booth across from them and smiled. "And Carys Morgan."

"You know my name." The man's beauty was startling all over again, his lips full and pink like berries she wanted to bite. The dark stubble on his jaw begged for her touch.

"Not from her, you don't," Duncan said. "So don't be getting ideas."

Dru smiled. "I asked about the American visiting and asking questions about Lachlan. People here are so friendly and forthcoming."

"So you might guess why we're paying you a visit." Duncan's voice was a borderline hostile growl.

Dru pulled another bottle of whiskey from seemingly nowhere, and three glasses were on the table in a blink. "Do you need my help, Duncan Murray?"

"You know I have leverage."

Dru's eyes narrowed. "Are you saying that you want to trade one of your favors? For her?"

"Don't make this complicated, Dru." Duncan lowered his voice even more and switched to Gaelic, which Dru apparently understood and Carys didn't.

The two men went back and forth for several agonizing minutes while Carys grew increasingly impatient. She hated not knowing what was going on, and all of this reeked of insiders keeping secrets.

She hated that.

Carys hated cliques and secrets. She abhorred gatekeepers and insiders. Her father used to tease her about it, calling her his "very American daughter. "

"Enough." Carys broke into their hushed conversation. "Either tell me what you're talking about or I'm leaving."

Dru's eyes lit up. "And who are you to dictate the terms of this negotiation, Carys Morgan, stranger to two worlds?"

Duncan blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"She'll know when she knows." Dru turned to Carys and poured a finger of whiskey in her glass. "Drink with me and I'll know you. See that you don't get lost in the shadows tonight."

She eyed the glass with suspicion, then turned to Duncan. He gave her a slight nod. Dru poured another finger of whiskey in Duncan's glass, then in his own.

"We have an agreement then."

Carys didn't know what made her do it, but just before Dru was about to pick up his glass, she reached over and switched her glass with the strange man's.

He looked at her with amusement, picked up the glass he'd poured for Carys, and drank.

Duncan sighed, then downed the whiskey. "Done."

Carys picked up the cold glass holding the golden liquid, tipped it up, and drank it in one gulp. "Done."

Dru's eyes came alive, and the vivid blue seemed to get darker as she watched him. "I'll see you on the edge of the forest, Duncan Murray. Be there at sunset."

"Leave it." Duncan took her phone and tossed it on the bed. "We don't have much time. The days are short this time of year."

"I'm not leaving my phone?—"

"If you don't leave it, they'll take it."

" Who will take it?" She shook her head. "You keep telling me all these mysterious rules, and I know a lot of them are based in old European superstitions, but?—"

"Ha!" He snorted. "Old European… Yes, it's all superstition. Li sten, woman, I traded something quite valuable for this passage, so you'll listen to the rules I give you. Don't take your phone. It'll be safe here at the house with Mary and Andrew, and if you bring it to the forest tonight, you'll lose it. Trust me, I've tried. No cameras. No film of any kind. No metal that's not fine?—"

"What does that mean?"

"No iron or iron alloys." He looked at her necklace. "Is that gold?"

Carys wore a necklace that had been her mother's, a gold chain with two Welsh dragons on it, one in gold and the other in silver. "It's gold and silver, yeah."

"That should be fine," he muttered. "Basically, anything modern, just leave it. I can't even take a pocketknife to this place."

She pointed to the knife hanging on his belt. "What's that then?"

He drew the blade from the leather-wrapped sheath. "It's bone with a flint blade, and I'll be hiding it before we meet Dru."

Carys was starting to feel like she was entering someone's delusion. "Is this going to be dangerous ?"

Was Duncan Murray really a serial killer who was going to dispose of her in the forest tonight?

After meeting you at a pub in a small town and introducing you to his housekeeper?

She listened to too many podcasts.

"Dangerous?" He shrugged. "Could be. Could be fine. You wanted to see Lachlan, so we're going."

"You said you went to this place when you were a kid, so I assumed that this was…"

"What?"

Some kind of elaborate prank to be honest. Carys was going along with all of Duncan's plans, but in her heart, she didn't really believe in any kind of alternate dimensions, shadow worlds, or different timelines no matter how many times her levelheaded engineer friend Laura told her that the science behind dimensional shifts were entirely possible in theory.

In theory. Not in practice .

"Text your friends," Duncan told her. "Tell them you're going camping with Lachlan for a few days and that you're fine. Leave your phone here and give them Mary's number. The last thing we need is more Americans showing up to harass my staff."

Carys knew leaving her phone was good advice, but it also made her feel naked. But practically speaking, she knew that even if wherever they were going was just a remote area of Scotland, the signal probably wouldn't work.

"Fine."

"Good."

Duncan was annoying her the longer he lingered in the room where Mary had put her luggage.

"Can you give me some privacy please?" She looked at him from the corner of her eye as she texted Laura and Kiersten her location.

"Fine, but be ready in an hour and dress warm."

Carys told Laura and Kiersten she was going camping like Duncan had said and that if they were worried to call Mary Burris at Murrayshall House. She also told them that Lachlan and Duncan were some kind of minor Scottish royalty, that everything was fine, and she'd explain later.

She was going to come back to two hundred messages, she just knew it.

Duncan left the room, and Carys walked to the window to stare at the forest where they would meet Dru later that night.

Though the town was only a short drive away, the forest behind Murrayshall House and the old castle felt primeval. The dense forest reached up the giant hill—not quite a mountain—surrounding the ruined castle and an even older-looking fort on the hill above it. Grey stones butted up from the top of the ridge where the old fort had been built, like jagged teeth from the jawbone of a monster.

There was a stream running down the hill and into the meadow around the house, curling and bounding over moss-covered rocks and twisting between the curves of the earth. A waterfall was barely visible between the trees .

And somewhere in that forest was Lachlan, at least according to his brother.

She changed her mind. This was the worst idea in her twenty-nine years of life on this planet. Going into a dark forest with her missing boyfriend's not-twin brother.

She was following that bunny all the way into the woods, and the wolf was probably the one guiding her.

Carys changed her trousers to the heaviest khaki canvas she owned, pulled on wool socks and a microfiber undershirt, layering a wool sweater over her shirt before she donned a wool coat that Mary had loaned her.

Apparently her bright red puffer coat was a little too conspicuous.

She finished her trekking outfit with sturdy boots, then walked down the stairs to meet Duncan, who was waiting at the door in similar sturdy hiking clothes.

"Ready?" he asked.

No.

He cocked his head. "Last chance to leave it."

Carys lifted her chin, walked past him, and opened the front door.

The forest was dark but hardly silent. As they approached the edge of the woods, she saw Dru waiting on a fallen log. His pale skin shone in the gathering darkness, and he almost seemed to glow.

They said not a word when Dru rose, but Duncan took her hand and closed it within his own as they followed the strange man into the woods.

"Don't let go of me," Duncan said quietly. "Keep your eyes on Dru as we walk. Keep your wits about you, and whatever you hear, don't react."

"What am I going to hear?"

"Things that aren't real." He glanced at her over his shoulder. "And some that seem too real. I'll explain when we're through the gate. "

Gate? Carys bit her tongue and went with it. Whatever this was, Duncan was taking it seriously, and as long as he took her to Lachlan, she'd go along with it.

Dru walked along the path through the woods, over stones and through the trees. The farther they got into the deepening darkness, the harder it was to keep her eyes on him. He seemed to blend into the trees, disappearing and reappearing as the forest grew darker and deeper.

They walked over a small bridge and down a set of carved stone steps into what looked like a grotto covered in moss where faded ribbons were tied around branches and copper pennies were pushed into tree trunks.

"Duncan?"

"Shh." He squeezed her hand. "Don't speak. Whatever you hear or see from now on, don't speak to them."

Them?

The three travelers passed through the grotto and under a narrow cut in the rocks where a fallen log had created an archway. The forest grew darker as the sun set, and the sky—which she could barely make out through the tree canopy—deepened from a faded grey to a velvety midnight blue.

There was a chittering, crawling sound in the dense brush beside her, and a branch snagged her pant leg. Duncan hissed something in Gaelic, and the noise scattered. An owl hooted, then another, the birds calling to each other over their heads while a crow squawked somewhere in the distance.

Carys heard more clicking in the forest and the sound of something small scurrying behind them.

She started to turn, and Duncan squeezed her hand and tugged her closer.

"Don't turn. Eyes on Dru. Just Dru."

Cold creeped under her collar and down the back of her sweater, raising goose bumps on her skin. Her feet tripped over another branch that she hadn't seen Duncan step over, and something else grabbed her pants.

She felt fingers, and her heart jumped into her throat.

"Duncan!"

"Shh!" He linked their hands and drew her nearly into his body.

Carys's senses went on high alert, and she tried not to panic. The tapping sound was all around them now, like branches snapping underfoot or pebbles falling onto dry leaves. The ground beneath her was soft, and she saw blue lights in her peripheral vision. In the distance, there was a rush of sound like waves from an ocean she couldn't see.

Don't follow the lights. It was her mother's voice in her head as they walked in the forest behind their house in the late afternoon. Don't ever follow the lights, my Carys. They want to lead you away from me.

Through the winding narrow path, Dru walked with a careless gait, tossing his hair and whistling a low tune that caught in Carys's mind. She focused on it, especially when Dru began to sing.

Sing me a place where sea becomes sky

Where stone swallows mountain

Where this world goes to die

Duncan kept her hand in an iron grip as the forest around them turned into a cacophony of sound and winking blue lights tempted her from the corners of her eyes. She heard a baby crying and another laughing. More crying. Wailing.

Something in her heart broke to pieces and fell on the forest floor, trampled under her own stumbling feet. Tears pooled in her eyes, her feet grew heavy and her legs stiff as Dru continued to sing his odd, haunting melody.

Write me a poem of heather and firth

Where forest touches night and night becomes eart h

She didn't know where night ended and forest began. The darkness was everywhere. The shadows moved like figures in a dream, appearing on one side, then another. The sound of wings overhead, and the whoosh of feathers before a tiny screech and silence.

"Don't listen. Don't speak," Duncan whispered.

Carys wanted to close her eyes, but she kept them on Dru, determined not to lose herself in the disorienting rush of sensation. Their strange guide continued to sing as if he was taking a pleasant walk in the woods, though his words grew increasingly dark.

The shadows, they call you when life becomes still

They call you to taste them

They tempt you to thrill

More laughter. More crying. A baby wailed in the night, and Carys's heart turned toward the pitiful sound, but she couldn't move. She was nearly plastered to Duncan's back as she trudged along the dark path, ignoring the catch of fingers on her clothes and the brush of feathers along her neck.

The darkness it holds you

Don't try to turn back

Its wild weathered places

Are all that you lack…

Dru's song trailed off as they walked through another narrow stone passage with arching branches overhead. Carys heard water in the distance, not the disorienting rush of waves that sounded like a distant ocean but the grounded, gritty slap of water on stone.

There was one last burst of laughter in the trees behind her before a kiss of light broke through gloom, illuminating something that nearly seemed like dawn.

It wasn't dawn though, but the dim light of a midwinter day in the northern latitude. She looked up but couldn't see the sun anywhere .

Duncan's hand released its pressure, and she saw his shoulders start to relax. "They wanted you," he murmured. "That was strange."

"Strange?" Carys's mind was racing. "Duncan, what the hell was that?"

"Shhhh."

The path widened, and Duncan pulled her to stand beside them. The trees were thinning, and Dru stopped just before another fallen log. He turned and faced them, and Carys gasped.

He had scratches on his neck and jaw, welling with something that looked like glycerin. The wounds marred the unearthly beauty he'd worn when he entered the forest. Even more, there were dark marks on his forehead and his neck, swirling blue sigils that matched the color of his eyes.

He caught Carys's expression and smiled. "Not what you remember, Carys Morgan?"

Dru walked past them, brushing against Carys's shoulder on the path before he walked back toward the forest. "Duncan Murray, our bargain is complete."

"This portion of it anyway."

Dru halted, turned, and his eyes landed on Carys. "Are you sure there isn't anything you need from me, Carys Morgan?"

With the shadows behind him and the light coming from over her shoulder, the swirling sigils on his forehead were even clearer, as was the heavy water dripping from his wounds.

No. Not water. She narrowed her eyes, examining the scratches. In the dim near-dawn light that shone on Dru's face, she saw the truth. The wounds were weeping with a silvery liquid the consistency of blood.

Because it was blood.

Dru had silver blood.

"What are?—"

"No." Duncan squeezed her hand. "Don't ask him."

The strange man's eyes pulled her in. "Finish the question, Carys Morgan. "

She shook her head, her rational mind battling with the reality she saw in front of her. "Thank?—"

"No." Duncan spun her around to face him. "Remember what you know. Remember what you've read. You're not in your books anymore, Carys. Never thank them. Never ever thank someone here." He turned to Dru. "We are grateful that our passage through the gate was safe."

She looked over her shoulder at the rolling hills below the precipice where they were standing. The forest was behind them, and beyond the trees was a gently undulating land threaded with hedgerows, streams, and rocky outcrops. It was a patchwork of deep green, blue, and a grey so dark it was nearly black. It looked like the landscape she'd seen around Duncan's house, but there were no power lines. No signs of human habitation.

There was no sign of civilization anywhere.

She turned her head to Dru, who was waiting for her to speak, and she thought about every fairy tale she'd ever read, every superstition her father had ever thrown her way, and every warning from her mother that had never made sense before this moment.

She nodded slightly and thought carefully about her words. "It was good to meet you, Dru."

Dru smiled wider, and his blue eyes danced again. "It was my pleasure, Carys Morgan. Welcome to the Shadowlands."